William Hague, the most senior Cabinet minister not enjoying a holiday abroad,
rushed from his country residence to chair a Whitehall meeting about the
financial crisis.

He said the UK government was “fully functioning” amid accusations from Labour that the Government had been caught out by the enormity of the turn of economic events.

David Cameron is on holiday in Italy, George Osborne in America and Nick Clegg in Spain. Downing Street insisted neither Chancellor nor Prime Minister would return early from their summer break, and claimed both were being kept up to date with any developments.

Across Europe, other prime ministers and presidents were under pressure to return to their desks as the Eurozone crisis escalated.

Angela Merkel is on a mountain walking holiday in Italy, but broke off to speak to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, by telephone.

Mr Sarkozy was at his wife Carla Bruni’s holiday villa in Cap Nègre, on the French Riviera.

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Only Mr Zapatero succumbed to the pressure. He was back in his Madrid office on Friday having returned early from his holidays in Donana national park, southern Spain.

He delayed going there by a day as crisis deepened and then returned on Wednesday after only one night there.

Mr Hague, the Foreign Secretary, made media appearances at lunchtime to try and calm fears about another economic meltdown and claimed Britain was “not in the firing line.”

He then held a meeting, described by No10 as “stock-take,” at the Foreign Office with Treasury officials. He had earlier spoken to Mr Cameron who had already been briefed by Sir Mervyn.

Mr Hague dismissed calls for the Prime Minister to reconsider his holiday plans and from Labour that the Coalition leaders needed to “get a grip.”

Angela Eagle, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “I would be the last to begrudge anybody a holiday but I think it is fairly extraordinary that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor have all contrived to go away at the same time, just when there happened to be this turmoil in international markets.

“I think they need to co-ordinate their diaries a bit more in future, markets continue to operate over the summer.”

Lord Prescott, the former Labour deputy prime minister, launched a Twitter campaign to urge senior government figures to return to the UK. But it was pointed out that he had been caught playing croquet at his country residence when he was supposed to be filling in for Tony Blair five years ago.

Mr Hague countered: “The Government is always operating, 24 hours a day, we’re not in the 18th century. Of course everyone is constantly in touch by telephone and whatever means necessary.

“I’ve been discussing it with the Prime Minister this morning and, indeed, I’m on my way into central London to chair a meeting about this now, so the Government is fully functioning in response to this crisis and, indeed, to anything else that is happening in the country and in the world.”

Mr Hague held a meeting in London on Friday afternoon with Treasury officials and other government advisers.

To show that he was fully engaged, the Chancellor took a telephone call from Sir Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England.

But the Liberal Democrats seemed to be enjoying the fact that the top Conservatives Cabinet ministers were away.

Lord Oakeshott, a senior Lib Dem peer and former party Treasury spokesman said: “Everyone needs a holiday. This is a silly reaction. People need holidays.

“Frankly, we have the two cabinet ministers who are the real economic experts in this cabinet – Vince Cable and Chris Huhne – at their desks. There’s plenty of expertise here in London.”

Mr Cable, also dismissed concerns, as he too took to the airwaves to try and make sense of the turmoil in the financial markets.

The Business Secretary said: “I think everybody in Europe and indeed everywhere else recognises that this is a serious problem, that it can’t be dealt with overnight and the fact that some ministers are on holiday here and elsewhere is not, frankly, material.”